Tag: Matthew Mestrovic

The Honorable Dr. Matthew Mestrovic, by M-J de Mesterton

What You Should Know about Communism and Why (click here to download the book), by Dr. Matthew Meštrović, was required reading in American schools in the 1960s. I was given a paperback copy of it in fourth grade, due to President Kennedy’s initiative a year or two before; we were regular readers of Scholastic Magazine in school, which had published the 1962 McGraw-Hill book in a series. I have written a brief biography of Dr. Meštrović: ambassador, member of parliament, lieutenant, professor and prolific author.

Dr. Matthew Meštrović, son of the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, is an American author, journalist and professor of Modern European history. He was educated in Italy, Switzerland and the United States; he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Dr. Meštrović has taught European History at New York University and Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. He worked as a Contributing Editor of TIME magazine, and has written many articles for American and European newspapers and periodicals, including “The Commonweal”, “The New Leader”, the North American Alliance news syndicate, “The Intelligence Report” of the London Economist.

In 1986, Dr. Matthew Meštrović was awarded the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor, together with President Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Mrs. Clinton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Dr. Henry Kissinger, and New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger.

Dr. Meštrović served as a U.S. Army lieutenant during the War in the Pacific, and is a Korean War veteran.Matthew Meštrović is the author of several books in English and Croatian, notably “ What You Should Know about Communism and Why,” “The struggle for Croatia” and “In the Whirlpool of Croatian Politics.” He published, in the U.S., Dr. Franjo Tudjman’s book “Nationalism in Contemporary Europe” and Venko Markovski’s “Goli Otok – The Island of Death.” He authored several political tracts, notably “Violations of Human and National Rights of the Croatian People in Yugoslavia,” and “Croatian Response to the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art.”

From 1982 to 1991 he was president of the Croatian National Congress, a world-wide organization with chapters in several of countries, whose purpose is to champion the right of the Croatian people to sovereignty and democracy. He lobbied on behalf of Croatian self-determination in Washington, D.C., western Europe and Australia. In this capacity, Dr. Meštrović was received by Germany’s President Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker, the U.S. State Department, Quai d’Orsay, European Parliament, the British Foreign Office, and several other entities around the world.

Dr. Meštrović was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament (1993-1997), a member of Croatia’s delegation to the Council of Europe and the Interparliamentary Union and ambassador to Bulgaria (1997-2000). He is also the recipient of numerous Croatian and Bulgarian decorations.

Because of his father’s and his own anti-communist beliefs, combined with a staunch commitment to freedom, Dr. Meštrović was declared by the Yugoslav regime “Enemy Number One of the Yugoslav State”, and labelled as a “top CIA agent”.